Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

CBS Evening News profiled RWJF Community Health Leader Roseanna Means, MD, who founded the nonprofit Women of Means in 1988 to provide free medical care to homeless women in the Boston area. Today, 16 volunteer doctors and staff nurses provide care at the city’s shelters to women with unique sensitivities and needs. Read a post Means wrote about her nonprofit for the RWJF Human Capital Blog.

A study led by RWJF Clinical Scholars alumnus Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, finds more than 40 percent of American parents give over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to children under age 4, despite product label warnings to the contrary. Health Day and the Examiner report on the findings.

Helena Hansen, MD, PhD, an alumna of the RWJF Health & Society Scholars program, is the lead author of an analysis that concludes social determinants—rather than changes in the environment or flawed diagnostic criteria—help explain the dramatic rise in the number of Americans diagnosed with mental disorders in recent years. Health Canal and MedPage Today report on the findings.

Forty-seven percent of children with cancer who receive part of their treatment at home have been exposed to at least one medication error, according to a study led by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars alumna Kathleen E. Walsh, MD, MSc. Those errors had the potential to harm 36 per 100 patients, and actually did cause injury to four per 100, MedPage Today reports.

Have you signed up to receive Sharing Nursing’s Knowledge? The monthly Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) e-newsletter will keep you up to date on the work of RWJF’s nursing programs, and the latest news, research and trends relating to academic progression, leadership and other critically important nursing issues.  Here are descriptions of some of the stories in the December issue:

Nurse Heroes
In the weeks after Hurricane Sandy pummeled shores in New York and New Jersey, a number of stories surfaced about the critical role nurses played during and after the storm hit. Nurses are gaining widespread recognition for their emergency-relief work—even a nod from President Obama. But the contributions of nurses working as emergency responders is not new.  Read the story.

CDC Recognizes Nurse Leader for Groundbreaking Research on Domestic Violence
RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholar program director Jacquelyn Campbell is being hailed as one of the 20 most influential researchers in injury prevention over the last 20 years by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Campbell’s groundbreaking research has shown that nurses can work alongside partners in health care, law enforcement and social work to protect women from the ravages of domestic violence. The school nurse turned domestic violence prevention pioneer is the only nurse to receive the CDC’s prestigious distinction. Read the profile.

Signs of Progress in Addressing New Jersey’s Nurse Faculty Shortage
Legislators had praise and questions for the health, business and academic leaders who gathered at the State House in Trenton on Nov. 19 to provide updates on progress made so far by the New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI)—a multi-year, multi-million-dollar project of RWJF and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation that is working to fill nurse faculty positions in the state. Since its inception in 2009, NJNI’s Faculty Preparation Program has supported 61 New Jersey Nursing Scholars who are pursuing (or have completed) master’s or doctoral degrees that qualify them for nurse faculty positions. Read the story.

Why Nurses Go Back to School
A new study from the RWJF RN Work Project identifies the characteristics and factors that best predict whether nurses will return to school to earn higher degrees. The researchers identified internal and external motivators, and barriers, to advancing nurses’ education.  Learn more.

See the entire December issue here. Sign up to receive Sharing Nursing’s Knowledge here.

Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP, is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Clinical Scholars program alumna and an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Emergency Medicine. She recently led the MyHeartMap Challenge, a community improvement initiative and research project to identify and map automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in Philadelphia. Read a post she wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about the Challenge.

Human Capital Blog: Why was it important to collect information about the location of AEDs?

Raina Merchant: Currently there is no comprehensive map or database of where all the AEDs are located—in Philadelphia or really anywhere. So when someone collapses, we have to rely on people remembering where they last saw an AED. In fact, most 911 centers don’t have databases of where AEDs are located. So, the likelihood of being able to find one in an emergency is pretty low, and as a result we have these lifesaving devices that are rarely used. We used the MyHeartMap Challenge, an innovation tournament to have the public find AEDs in Philadelphia, take a photo using a smartphone app, and tag their location so we can make this information available to anyone who needs it.

HCB: How many people or teams participated in the Challenge? How many AEDs were identified?

Merchant: We were really excited about the results. We had more than 330 participants (individuals and teams) who contributed data to the Challenge. They reported more than 1,500 locations of AEDs in the city of Philadelphia. We’re still trying to sort out who exactly participated, but we had representation from schools and health organizations, as well as a lot of individuals who recruited their friends, neighbors and colleagues.  We were worried that people would make up devices, submit false locations or send low-quality pictures, but we were really impressed with the quality of data we received. Every one took this challenge very seriously. The challenge had two winners who were each awarded $9,000 for reporting more than 430 AEDs each. Both winners were also over the age of 40.

By Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program alumna and assistant professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Emergency Medicine

If the person next to you went into cardiac arrest, would you know what to do? Would you know where to find an automated external defibrillator (AED) to shock and restart their heart? Millions of public places across the United States have AEDs that can save lives – airports, casinos, churches, gyms and schools, among them – but most people don’t know where they’re located. Every second counts when someone’s heart stops beating, and time spent searching for an AED is time wasted in increasing the chances of survival.

Surprisingly, no one knows where all of the country’s AEDs are located. Requirements for AED reporting and registration vary widely by state, and no comprehensive map of their locations has ever been compiled. As a result, 911 dispatchers aren’t always able to direct callers to an AED in an emergency, and callers have no good way of quickly locating one on their own.

This week, I launched the MyHeartMap Challenge with a multidisciplinary team from the University of Pennsylvania. This pilot study will use social media and social networking tools to gather this critical public health data and create searchable maps of Philadelphia’s AEDs that can be used by health professionals and the general public.

The first step of our challenge is a Philadelphia-based community-wide contest. We’re asking Philadelphians to find and photograph AEDs over the next six weeks, and submit the photo and location to us via a mobile app or our website. You can also participate if you don’t live in Philadelphia by finding a creative way to use your social network or harness crowdsourcing.

Sidney Coupet, DO, MPH, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan, is the founder and executive director of Doctors United for Haiti. Read more about his work on the RWJF Human Capital website.

Did you know the average Haitian physician sees about 100 patients a day? Can you imagine if your doctor had to see 100 patients a day? Trust me, remembering your name would be the least of her problems! In a country with rampant chronic and infectious diseases, the poor health state – and an ambiguous health care system – can be overwhelming for Haitian health care professionals. Many of them leave the country in hopes of a better career and life.

But simultaneously, an overwhelming number of U.S. physicians are traveling to the shores of Haiti. They’re providing humanitarian aid and lifting a burden, intervening before Haitian health care professionals decide to flee their own country.

And they’re doing it through Doctors United For Haiti, an organization I started in 2006 to help my parents’ native country.

Doctors United For Haiti (DUFH) has created an academic environment in which both American and Haitian health care professionals benefit. Our program creates an opportunity for doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, mental health professionals and health administrators to share and exchange knowledge in a non-threatening environment. This academic approach was created as an opportunity to empower, educate and support Haitian health care professionals as they deliver quality care to their own people.

Simultaneously, it provides opportunities for American health care professionals to receive global health training. While this model is obviously providing opportunities for improvement in Haiti, our doctors will return with skills that will save our own system money and make it run more efficiently.

Sharon Stanley, PhD, RN, a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow, the chief nurse for the American Red Cross, and a recently retired leader in the U.S. Army Reserves after 34 years of service, discusses the role nurses can play in disaster relief.

Human Capital Blog: Congratulations on your selection for the Executive Nurse Fellows (ENF) program. The news broke amidst earthquakes and hurricanes – not your easy season! But your work with the Red Cross is related to your plans for the fellowship. Tell us about that, please.

Sharon Stanley: It’s absolutely related. What I’d like to focus on with the fellowship is the role of nurses in disaster planning and relief at the American Red Cross. So it’s very timely! We rely greatly on nurses in disaster recovery. They’re really the “care” component of what we do. But it’s not just after the disaster strikes where nurses need to play a role. Our preparedness efforts go on all year, across the organization. We’re working to educate our various communities and lay the foundation for preparedness and recovery. Nurses are already involved in that, and I’m hoping that as a result of my work with the ENF program they’ll become even more fully integrated and take a bigger role in the leadership of our efforts.

One thing we’re doing already to help accomplish that is the addition of a new volunteer component to disaster response – the certified nursing assistant (CNA). Red Cross has been providing nurse assistant training for a while now. In disaster situations, when people are displaced, it’s important to have trained volunteers who can help care for people who live with access and functional needs at shelters. Those needs don’t go away in a disaster; if anything, those needs become more acute in such circumstances, in the midst of the chaos. So we’re ramping up our training for CNAs and, of course, that training is of use to the community not just in disaster circumstances or even just in preparation for disaster, but all year round.

HCB: Give us a sense of how you prepare for disasters.

Stanley: I think one of the biggest misconceptions about our work is that we pop up when hurricanes roll into town and then recede when the storm passes. In fact, we’re very busy making sure that needed resources are both available and in place before the storm hits, and we’re still there long after the winds stop blowing or the ground stops shaking.

On April 27, 2011, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Ladder to Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders program graduate (2009-10) Beth Albright Johns, M.P.H., assistant vice president for Early Childhood Initiatives and Education and the Success by 6 program at the United Way of Central Alabama, watched as much of her hometown was destroyed by tornadoes. While helping her friends, neighbors and colleagues in any way that she could, Johns also focused on her primary role, finding ways to protect the emotional health of the children affected by the tornado.

On April 27, 2011, the largest outbreak of tornadoes in the history of our country hit the southeastern United States and my home state of Alabama. Living in my part of Alabama, I am used to severe weather, but the 27th felt different. The day started with a sense of foreboding, but given our weather history, worrying about it was out of character. In our community, a warning of severe weather generally means watching experienced meteorologist, James Spann, roll up his sleeves and get down to business to help us prepare. So that April day, we tuned in only to watch Spann struggle to maintain his composure as the tornado destroyed Tuscaloosa. I became more and more alarmed as I watched it devastate the communities of friends, colleagues and other neighborhoods where I work and tear through my hometown of Birmingham. Numbing disbelief set in as Spann said, “Oh my God, take cover…it’s out of control.”

First Responders

The next day, April 28th, the community sprung into action. Our boardroom became the statewide 2-1-1 help line headquarters. Calls poured in from people asking for assistance or asking: “What can I do to help out?” Over 13,000 citizens registered through Hands On Birmingham and 2-1-1 to assist with the clean up and recovery. Pallets of clothes, water, generators and people from all over the country arrived to help. While trying to help others, my co-workers were also searching for loved ones and focusing on our job—protecting the mental health of children affected by the storms.

We immediately went to work with local agencies to advocate for mental health assessments for post-traumatic stress disorder among the kids.